New Bedford Guide Your Guide to New Bedford and South Coast, MA
Meet Jess Bregoli, 32-year-old gardener and sculptor.
Jess moved to the area when she was a child from Oregon so that her mother could finish her Masters degree at UMass Dartmouth. Growing up she would work with her mentor, Emily Johns, taking care of the waterfront gardens at the Seaport in Downtown New Bedford. At the age of 16 she left school and backpacked through New England and ended up in Vermont. When she was 17 she realized that she needed to finish high school and came back home.
During her early 20s she attempted to complete a degree in Art History at several local colleges but left the area to pursue a relationship and business ventures in Atlanta, Georgia. While in Georgia she owned a coffee shop/art gallery and ran a high end clothing store. She then had her son, Sage, and it was around that time that she realized that she wanted to do large scale sculptures about environmental issues. Upon her split with Sage’s father, she moved back to New England.
Back home, she decided to go back to school and finish her degree, but got involved with the sculpture program at UMass, seeing she hadn’t had any formal training and wanted to start creating. Upon graduation from UMass, Jess has worked with several local committees, including being co-chair of New Bedford Beautiful, freelancing as the Art Administrator for the City of New Bedford, and working with the New Bedford Cultural Council. Working with these departments, she has worked for the last two years on the Seaport Art Walk, where local artists gather to bring to life our Seaport area with murals and sculptures of all shapes and sizes.
Faces of New Bedford is a project by Colton Simmons. If you are interested in booking a shoot or getting prints from the series email all inquiries to colton@coltonsimmons.com
Follow Colton on Instagram: https://instagram.com/simmonscolton
